Women and Mental Health

4
The Conflict Between
Nurturance and Autonomy
in Mother-Daughter
Relationships
and Within Feminism

JANE FLAX

For we think back through our mothers if we are women.

—Virginia Woolf, 1945

My mother's worst fantasy is that she will end up like her mother. My worst fantasy is that I will end up like my mother, and I
know that as soon as I have that fantasy, I am already trapped.

—Therapy patient, age twenty

After years of psychoanalytic investigation and practice, Freud admitted that he still could not answer the question "What do women
want?" Ironically, his own theoretical framework may have prevented

____________________

I would like to thank Temma Kaplan for her editorial assistance, encouragement, and
sharing of ideas. Kirstin Dahl and Joan Sarnat exchanged clinical experiences and ideas
and, most important, have worked to develop friendships that have overcome some of
the conflicts described here.

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